By Ronnie Nathanielsz

The 9th Annual Gabriel “Flash” Elorde awards banquet at The Tent of the historic Manila Hotel will also feature some potentially exciting fights including a Philippine featherweight title fight.

Set for March 25, the 74th birth anniversary of the late world junior lightweight champion,  the awards night will see Vinvin Rufino defend his Philippine featherweight title against veteran Jaime Barcelona.

The 27 year old southpaw from the Johnny Elorde stable has a record of 15-7-3 with 7 knockouts while his 31 year old opponent Barcelona has had many more fights and boasts of a record of 37-42-1 with 9 knockouts with many of his fights taking place abroad.

Well known TV boxing analyst Moy Lainez said the record of Barcelona is deceiving pointing out that “if he has trained well, Barcelona will give Rufino a very tough fight.”

Rufino won the title with a twelve round unanimous decision over veteran Jeffrey Onate on May 5, 2006 in a fight where Rufino was dropped in round two and Onate decked in rounds 7, 10 and 11, in the process losing two teeth.

Rufino is coming off a 3rd round knockout over Japan ’s Kenji Nakagawa at the Edogawa Sports Center in Tokyo last October 17.

He was twice beaten by undefeated Thai fighter Chonlatarn Piriyapinyo in WBC Asian Boxing Council title fights suffering a 7th round TKO on December 5, 2006 and a 5th round TKO on October 31, 2007.

Barcelona is coming off a 1st round TKO over Eric Macas last January 19 after dropping a twelve round unanimous decision to Piriyapinyo (27-0, 14 KO’s) last January 2 in an ABC title fight. Like Rufino, Barcelona also fought the undefeated Thai twice losing for the first time also by a twelve round unanimous decision on May 22 last year.